Argentina to pay hedge funds a portion of debt owed after default

Earlier this year, Opalesque reported on the going court challenge launched by hedge funds and pensioners the wake of the Argentine default. Since then, the Argentine government has been doing everything it can to avoid making payouts to the debt holdouts, even though they've lost much of their ability to make other payments or borrow money from international financial bodies. On Friday, a US Court of Appeals ordered the country to pay $1.47bn to hedge funds holding Argentina's debt. The ruling effectively ended appeals by Buenos Aires against a similar judgement first issued in 2012.

The court held that Argentina must compensate two hedge funds 100% of the value of defaulted Argentine government bonds they hold. Those two hedge funds - Gramercy, and Elliott Associates may never see any of the money they believe they are owed, but the case itself sets an important precedent for sovereign debt cases going forward. Both funds and others, are also involved in a political group American Task Force Argentina, which has represented and worked with pensioners who lost out on bonds they held at the time of default.

Argentina's government may have sealed its own fate on this appeal before any judgement was rendered, given the many public statements made by Argentine President Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner, c......................